Thanks For All the Fish

Today the Security Council and Germany made a few agreements with Iran. The most notable are that they'll all meet up again at the end of the month. The second was that Iran will allow the IAEA in to inspect the new site at Qom, which they said they'll do in two weeks or less. The third is that Iran will send its ~20% enriched uranium to Russia for verification.

I believe Iran has played us all, and though the events today would seem to be evidence against that at first blush, from the Iranian perspective nothing has substantially changed. Their goal now is to delay. Every extra day they delay is another day they can enrich ever more uranium.

Consider the deal to send Russia their already enriched uranium, which they say is for medical purposes (first, when it was at a lower enrichment level, it was for peaceful power generation). There is no timetable for that move, unless I simply misheard the President, which is entirely possible. Even if there is, the Iranian government has proven to be quite masterful at using delay and distraction techniques to achieve their goals.

If you'll remember the first few rounds of inspections, they continually led the IAEA inspectors on wild goose chases, locking them out of facilities, delaying entrance to facilities, even throwing them out of the country on occasion. There is no reason why they won't start that nonsense again, and no reason why they won't use the same techniques to keep their uranium away from Russia.

The President has promised to increase pressure if Iran does not comply. But what does that mean? Suppose two weeks go by and Iran delays letting the IAEA into the Qom facility, as they have done in the past. The conversation will go like this:

P5+1: "You were supposed to let those inspectors in. Two weeks are up, what's the deal?"
Iran: "Two weeks? That wasn't nearly enough time to prepare for such an auspicious visit, we need more time. Also, some holidays are coming. Religious ones."
P5+1: "Religious? Oh, pardon us. We didn't realize. We'll wait 'till they're over, but then we must begin without delay."
China: "Religion is the opiate of the masses."
Iran: "You dare to speak against the Prophet?"
U.S.: "You're not helping."
Iran: "We can't go on like this, being insulted day in and day out by these intolerant imperialists. America is the great Satan."
Russia: "True dat, yo."
U.S.: "Wait! We didn't even do anything!"
France: "Why can't you be more accomodating, like us? It's your arrogance that prevents peace."
U.K.: "I say, you can't speak that way about my sister, you filthy frogs!"
Germany: "Ich bin ein jelly doughnut."
Switzerland: "Who wants one of our world-famous Army knives? We also have some excellent watches and chocolate for sale."

I'm telling you, it's just going to get worse from here.